Several of our SEDXC members are on K1N. A few of of our local guys have been called by their first name so it's looking good. Only part of the team is on the island so far and one theory is that the computers may not have internet access yet. That could be why the web page is not showing them active yet.

I tried for about 20-30 minutes last night and finally gave up. That was one of the widest pileups I have seen for quite a while on 40 meters. I was disgusted, however at the many stations that did nothing but send their call over and over and over and over even while the stations was working someone else. They might eventually work the station, but it is pretty poor form to win the contact by brute force and stomping on everyone else's contact.

My moderate antennas and low power will need to wait until later in the operation for my change.

The Panafall DOES make it easier to avoid the idiots and find a hole to transmit. But l wasn't able to detect any particular pattern on the DX station last night. And the many stations who kept calling and calling ad nauseum made it very difficult to detect who the DX was working. I can usually see this on the screen. Not so this time. I guess they figured he was using Skimmer and their callsigns would show up on his screen even while he was talking to someone else. Or they figured that the obnoxious wheel gets the grease.

got him on 160m also, ken; armageddon - grade pile up on 160m early; virtually no skip zone on top band...took a full hour to catch him at 0218z; he was 589 or better, too.. even with the great pan and waterfall, it was tough!! w2gd cranking them out at 30 wpm, like a machine...seems like he was hearing VERY well.. 73, w5xz

Ken: Your first post re K1N encouraged me to try it with my 6700 barefoot and low, short "long wire". Just worked him on 20M CW. Obviously, luck played a part in it, but the SSDR panafall sure helped look for a hole to call from. Like you, think will await later to try for other bands.

Hey glad someone posted this. I have never been more than a casual CW operator as my skill level is not that good. But I could this on 160 last night on the Flex 6500 and was able to figure out it was about K1N. It was amazing to see the army of signals across 20khz fire up in sync. But I don't understand the operation and hoping someone can explain. Its obvious that K1N was transmitting somewhere and listening where???

Hi Rich,Here is an excerpt (edited) from the ARRL web page on working SPLIT.

Pileups

When a station suddenly pops up in a rare DXCC entity, US state or grid square, the result is a chaotic swarm of signals as everyone tries to make contact. We call these on-the-air mob scenes pileups.

The most difficult pileup occurs when everyone, including the DX station, is on the same frequency.

A good DX operator will try to make order out of chaos by imposing some rules. The most common technique is to ask for calls in order of call sign district:

“J77DR QRZ for sevens only!”

This means that J77DR only wants to hear from hams in the 7th call district. If your call sign has a number other than seven, you must remain silent and wait your turn.

As pileups become massive, the only workable solution is to spread it out. DX operators do this by transmitting on one frequency while tuning and listening through a range of frequencies.

For example, J77DR may transmit on 14190 kHz, but he will be listening for calls from 14195 through 14210 kHz:

“J77DR QRZ, 195 to 210!”

Or he may be somewhat less specific...

“J77DR QRZ, Up 5 to 15!”

This means that he is listening 5 to 15 kHz above his transmitting frequency.

Spreading the pileup in this fashion is known as working split. To make this work, you need to understand how to place your transceiver into the split frequency mode. Most modern radios have to variable frequency oscillators (VFOs) that you use to set your frequency. These separate VFOs are usually labeled A and B. When you place your radio in the SPLIT mode, you transmit on one VFO frequency and listen on the other. The trick is making sure that you don’t have them reversed.

Your best chance of making contact in a pileup is when the DX station is working split. You can analyze their operating patterns and pick a transmit frequency that gives you the greatest chance of being heard.

Al's additional notes: ----------------------------DX operators have their own style in the way the move up through the pile. Commonly they will move up a little with each QSO. But some jump around. The Flex tools help in trying to anticipate where he will listen next.

I think I understand the strategy at K1N. First of all the wide frequency spread (30+ kHz) makes it easier for them to separate callers than if there were a monster pileup in a narrow portion of the spectrum. Second, if they were to move up or down instead of leaping, the horde would jump along. (Granted, this makes it more difficult for the callers.)

BTW, John, W2GD, is an ace contester, and it shows in how quickly he works through the pileup. The other ops are doing well, too!

Patience, friends: the "deserving" will be rewarded. BTW, I worked them on 40, 20, and 15 back in 1982. Still, it would be great to snag them again! <grin>

Al, another advantage to working split, implied but not specifically stated, is that it gets the "mob" off of the DX station's transmit frequency so that people can hear when the DX is transmitting. Otherwise, all the stations constantly calling will cover the DX and NO ONE will be able to work it.

If everyone can clearly hear the DX station, he can control the pileup. Everyone will get into the same rhythm, and there is more order.... except for the people who haven't figured out what "UP" means, or haven't figured out how to activate split or XIT/RIT on their rigs, or the "Kilocycle Cops" who have nothing better to do than send "UP LID, UP LID, UP LID" every time someone accidently transmits on the DX frequency. (Though occasionally it might be needed for the station who doesn't get the hint and keeps on calling on the DX freq.) Oh, and the idiots who simply enjoy jamming rare DX and spoiling it for everyone else......

Dan... I actually saw that a few weeks ago. I never would have seen it without my flex. A station was apparently using modulated CW from a Digi program. There were no fewer than 8 CW signals coming from his rig evenly spaced over 3-5 Khz! I could see the CQ pattern in the spikes on my panadapter,

I don't know for sure whether it was intentional, or the result of a badly overdriven sound card as he tried to get a few more watts out of the transmitter. but it was ugly.

Looking at the pileups I had decided to wait until next week to even try for a contact. This morning however, I was watching the mob and decided to give it a quick try. Three calls and I made a contact on 15meters. I was shocked as fully 50kc of spectrum was packed with callers. I'm giving up now and waiting for things to let up a little.

On another note, it amazes me how many people tune their amp in the middle of the DX stations signal. Even more amazing are all the people that think yelling and swearing at the offender will help.

Why all the excitement at 2:00 AM Arizona time? Navassa Island is the second rarest DX entity, right behind North Korea, according to Club Log. This is one of those entities that you only get when there's a DXpedition because, fortunately, nobody has to live on that desolate rock.

First of all, this is a DXpedition that everyone can get excited about. It's in the Caribbean. So, if you can work Florida, you can work Navassa Island. They're workingall bands, so you don't need a 45-foot vertical or a 500-foot wire, or a beam. Your HOA stealth antenna will do.

Now, it's not going to be a piece of cake even though you should be able to hear K1N 5x9 24 hours a day on one of the bands, depending on propagation. This will test your operating skills in digging through a pileup. Every amateur radio operator on the planet wants this entity. So, expect hundreds of stations calling against a wide range of split listening area. He ALWAYS works split and ALWAYS up. I have seen ("seen is the way a Flex operator describes hearing a signal) stations calling as much as 20Khz above his operating frequency - and it's still crowded.

Rather than just log the QSO, I research and try to learn a little bit about each entity I work - it's as close as I can get to actually going there. This place has quite the history including a visit from Christopher Columbus in 1493. The island has a light house as it's only structure, which is where the K1N ops are housed. There is no infrastructure.

Navassa Island is a 2 square mile rock. The capitol is Lulu Town, long since abandoned.

The only export from Navassa Island is bird $#it. Guano. That's right, crap from our feathered friends was used for years as an agricultural product and mined by workers from the United States in the 19th century. You know, I thought I spent time on some desolate rocks during my Navy Career. Adak, Alaska, Diego Garcia, Midway, Wake, etc. This place takes the cake. You can read more about the Navassa bird poo industry here: [url]http://www2.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/misctopic/navassa/poop.htm[/url]

Navassa has the distinction of being the one of the few disputed territories of the United States. Haiti claims Navassa although the US administers it. I don't think we'll be going to war anytime soon - Haiti has enough problems to worry about being one of the poorest nations on the planet and having recently suffered a major earthquake.

This is a link to the K1N DXpedition page: [url]http://www.navassadx.com/[/url] There is also a link to a page from K6TU, Stu, another Flex Radio aficionado and probably one of the smartest people I know. Following radiation patterns through the ionosphere is mind boggling, to me anyway.

Many thanks to the ops who donate their time and live under adverse conditions, i.e., eating MREs and drinking canned water, so that we can work another entity.

K1N is a fantastic operation and truly a once-in-a-lifetime thing, with a cost to put it on that's over a half million dollars. Remember that Navassa is the 2nd rarest DX country in the world. One of the ops and organizers is Glen, W0GJ, who also a member of EIDXA, our local club. The NFWS has indicated they will not permit another operation there for at least 20 years, so it's now or never for guys my age. Thankfully they've assembled a world-class team. I'm headed out on vacation tomorrow and was afraid I might miss my chance, but yesterday I got them on 15 SSB, last night on 40 CW, and this morning on 30 RTTY and 20 CW. I'd never have managed it without the Flex and also SDR-Bridge/CW Skimmer. I'm hoping to snag them on 12 or 17 before we have to leave and am going to try operating remote via TeamViewer while we're in Alabama.

The Flex 6700 really helps on these big pile ups. Worked 7 bands so far, only 12 and 17 meters left to go. Hint, in case you didn't already know this, watch for the signal that suddenly pops up after K1N gives his report. Many are calling blindly and continuously, the responding station will "jump out" timed to the end of his transmission. Be patient and good hunting.

The 6000 series is so powerful for working splits! I lock Slice 'A' on the dx frequency, open a second slice and shift it's audio to full RH. Then with the Slice 'B' as the active frequency, I can double click on the spot where I think he is going to be listening next and hit the Function key to send my call!

And as you said, you can tell who is the last station he worked and click on him, or go a little up or down from him, depending upon the pattern. If the shift isn't very large, I can use the FlexControl Knob to shift up or down a little. It sure is nice to be able to visualize the band action!

Actually, they are running Elecraft K3 + KPA500. But it is a mess, a zoo, there have been pirate stations impersonating K1N. What's worse are the number, the sheer numbers, of people jamming the signal plus, and this is the, perhaps, worst part, frequency police with anything from "listening up" to "listening up you fool" to "hey dummy they are operating split, do you know what split means, they aren't listening where you are transmitting, ..." The frequency police are worse than the offenders that forgot what slice receiver to mark as XMIT.

I completely agree with you Walt. I believe whiners and complainers, vis a vis the expedition police, are the worst. They feed on peoples mistakes, and create more QRM. WHo hasnt made a mistake with a split? Plus, when they insult or call out the person, all they are doing is building resentment. I wouldn't be surprise if the persons doing the DQRM are actually more pissed at the split police, and the qrm is a knee jerk reaction.

I totally agree with you (agreeing with me). I think the frequency police are the cause for the VAST majority of the qrm, both directly and indirectly. I told one of the freq police, who had said they were talking to folks on the island, to tell them to announce they are listening up after every contact. I was told, effectively, to do something anatomically impossible.

I may likely have been one of those people, I know I've said, if FRS came out with the 6300 first, there would be very few sales for the 6500 and 6700. But to your point, Howard, that is the only reason I can see having more than 2. I've done precisely what you have said with my 3 remaining.

I also try to get right on the transmit freq and drop the bandwidth to 100. I've toyed, with limited success to sandwich the dx freq with two blocking filters. Oh, I discovered, for those that haven't yet, if you select one of the tracking filters (get the + cross hairs on it, and slide it up the filter gets wider and down, the filter gets narrower. The more I think abt it, the more I doubt that works at all, as the passband is set to 100Hz anyway.

Howard: That's a good example for multi-slice! I was thinking about this also one slight problem is I see more than a couple stations after K1N transmits. Instead of turning off the audio on second slice, I have 1st slice with audio in left ear for K1N then audio for scouting the station he's calling in right ear. The Flex supports this nicely. This is for CW - your favorite mode. :-)I would assume the CW skimmers show the calls of all the stations. Can one also assume it would point out who K1N is calling? That would be really cool, but a bit to automated.

Walt - thanks for the tip; was wondering how to set the width of those lil' buggers.

To use CW Skimmer as an aid, be sure to select "Show 599" in the drop down menu. Then, when any station responds with 599, it shows up in bold red. As time passes, the bold red turns to just red and eventually disappears. In theory, you can easily spot the responder and go to his frequency by clicking on his call sign. For pile ups as massive as K1N has had, this hasn't worked too well.

there is a lot of impersonation going on. That happened this morning on 12. A LOT of stations will be upset, but that is what you get for no code tests I suppose. Maybe that's not it but it sure seems like decorum has severely dropped. Between the jammers and spammers and impersonators I am awed by the traffic this is garnering during the week day. Perhaps if they worked NA areas 0-9 then SA then EU, there would be more chance people would get worked rather than the pig pile it is now.

Looks like i may have been victim to that on 40 cw last night. Only band that is not showing up on their online log check. I'll give it a day and see if the contact shows up otherwise will work them again on 40.

Oh oh. A half hour ago, I had 8 confirmations (awaiting 1 more to beuploaded) , and now the system says I have NO qso's. Something is goingon. So, Al's conjecture about "unavailable" has another dimension,available, but showing no records.

The "Callsign List" feature of CW Skimmer is another good way to see where the DX is being worked.

Ideally the call sign of the person being worked will show up on the band map with a "RED 599" but that doesn't always happen. Sometimes the call sign doesn't even appear on the band map.

This is where the call sign list can be helpful. Often those "missing calls" will be on the list. The list is sorted by call sign by default. You can then see the frequency being worked by the DX station as in the example below.

Anyone else also find this missing call scenario common and the call sign list a helpful solution?

Regards, Al / NN4ZZ al (at) nn4zz (dot) com

***** in this example you can see that K1N is working up the band but not all of the calls he is working (e.g. K9SI and KC0VKN) are on the band map ******

Thanks for posting this Al, very interesting. Not using the skimmers here so it's nice to see it applied to a busy band segment.

I worked them this morning (01:50-PST / 10:50-GMT) on third call (CW) as there were very few stations to compete against. Using the two slices / Howard's tip and the "stereo" feature paid big dividends. With non-SDR one could accomplish the task but the 6500 made it easier and more visual. Attached pana of action at the aforementioned time.

Nothing beats the human ear and brain for decoding cw but skimmer is much better than the two you listed.
However it is only as good as the quality of cw being sent and how strong the signal is (signal to noise).

I use skimmer to see where the dx station is listening in the pileup. That gives me a leg up on the competition ;-)

Agreed, Skimmer has the best CW Decode algorithm of all the programs I have tried. I sometimes use it to "check" myself when in the "furball" of the pileups. (It is useless, however, if the station has a really poor fist.) Its best utility, is in seeing who is on the band and where, as you have stated. Though simply observing the panafall has been more helpful for me on many occasions.

I don't know which is more pathetic, the guy who, likely one handed, spends hours jamming a dx station, or the guy who spends hours trying to get a 5 second contact with him. He is being a clear as could be "Japan and Asia ONLY" yet there are K6 and K8 stations. This hobby has turned into CB good buddies.

You know, I have been doing this for 50 years. It's really not that much different now. Inconsiderate jerks existed in 1965 just like they do today. I think that today it's a just a little easier for someone to be a jerk and for someone else to realize that he is.

When I was a VQ9 in the mid-70s, I would run phone patches for my Navy co-workers. Even when I was using my Navy MARS call, people would interrupt a phone patch to try and get a DX contact with my VQ9 call - like I could be inclined to send them a QSL card after they just broke in on the couple of minutes a young sailor had to speak with his family.

I thought I had heard the worst of inconsiderate when Tromelin Island. Not so. I have heard people impersonating K1N, people jamming him, and inconsiderate pigs calling him stepping all over the other stations without any attempt to co-exist on a frequency. I have heard EU complaining about the "USA Wall" and USA complaining when he was only working Europe. And then there are the DX Cops. Sheeesh!

It's not the fault of no-code Extras. It's the fault of a lack of enforcement, lack of Elmering, an attitude among some that they're entitled, and a lack of common courtesy on the part of a large part of our population.

The only way I can think of to fix it is to call someone on being a jackass when they're doing so - if it's possible without creating a disturbance on the air. Don't let it go unnoticed. Send them an e-mail - the address is usually available on QRZ.com. Sure, he knows who you are but a polite message pointing out whatever the discrepancy doesn't hurt. And if you anger him in the process, at least he's angry and he knows that he did something wrong and it didn't go unnoticed.

I left the pileup a few times over the last few days because I was getting so annoyed and frustrated at the kind of operating that we're taking about here. It wasn't worth it to me to get my blood pressure up over something that I can't do a whole lot about.

Oddly, I spent most of the day trying to contact K1N. I got them in pretty short order on 20 this morning. Odd thing there is my ant is stuck at abt 26' pointing to just north of due west, not due south. I couldn't use my amp so I got them with the 17-30 LP tuned on 20 with 100w. On 10, 12, and 15 running 500w I couldn't make a second contact despite them coming through fine. Ergo, my comment about the patheticness of the guy spending the day jamming them vs the guy spending the day trying to contact them. I doubt I'll do that tomorrow. It's retracted due to the blizzard but I suspect having it at altitude will work way better despite the bearing it is stuck at.RHR is beginning to look a lot better.